Very similar to us
apart from a daily 2 hour dog walk in countryside or beach,
And every weekend through the summer is a long one in the static van
I usually find people who ask them questions or say I couldnāt retire as I would be bored, is because they canāt retire.
I disagree, I think there is a personality thing for some people or that work consumes their life and then when older it is harder to pick up new things. Some just can't make that step and I think there needs to be more in the community to help give people that shove.
My dad was a teacher, head of department and at one point the chief maths examiner for either the country or just one of the main exam boards (not sure which). When he was not at work, he was planning lessons, making worksheets, planning exams, writing things to advise the government and navy (he was a key person bringing in maths coursework), or once June had passed he was marking exams. That took up a lot of his life. He did the gardening, DIY and decorating which filled in the rest. Basically those essential jobs we all try to squeeze in. He didn't really have any hobbies.
When he retired, the work all disappeared. The house was in a reasonable state and didn't need much decorating. The garden had changed over the years to be fairly low maintenance. Well stocked borders & flower beds didn't give much space for weeds, so it was mostly cutting the grass - just an hour or two every couple of weeks.
He really struggled in retirement and didn't know what to do with himself. The problem was, the more he sat and watched day time TV, the more bored he got and the less motivated he was to do anything. Here was a seriously intelligent bloke who had worked off pure initiative all his career and he could not find a way to occupy his time.
If I could go back and change anything, I wish I had taken a more assertive role. I bet if I had taken a few days off work to do some volunteering days at somewhere like Bowes Railway or Shildon and asked if he wanted to come with me, he would have come, got really interested, thrown everything into it and I'd have gotten grief off my mam because he was never home and always covered in oil. We suggested it but he didn't have the confidence to just go out and do it himself, yet within 20 minutes of being in an environment like that, he would have been laughing and joking with all the other blokes. Having seen what is around and having half an eye on retirement myself, I could have been that catalyst but I was in my 30s with very young kids and I just didn't think of approaching it that way.
Two notes for anyone who can't be arsed to read the whole story. Find stuff to do and if you have a loved one who can't find stuff to do, don't try and force them just ask them to keep you company when you go to something they will be interested in. Put in that effort to help them because if they go into a mental decline, physical health will soon follow.
. It's weird the last time I saw most of them was at school and the next time I see them almost all are retired and drawing the State Pension. In my head we're all not long out of school.
